MSOC Goes to 3rd Presidential Debate. (Photos)
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| Chapter Links Ohio Chapter Mars Society Newsletters Political Action - Printable Mars Society - Ohio Chapter Poster Main Home Page | . | A Private Initiative to Send Humans to MarsBy: Robert Zubrin Mars is the new frontier. The only world aside from Earth in our solar system with sufficient resources to support life and, someday, a new branch of human civilization, the Red Planet poses the central challenge faced by our era of history. Humanity: Do you have what it takes to leave your cradle Earth to become a multi-planet species? It is now clear that millions of people around the world are ready and willing to answer this challenge in the affirmative. On July 4, 1997, when NASA's Pathfinder probe landed on Mars, there were 100 million hits on the mission web site. That is more than the number of people who vote in the United States in a presidential election! It is more than the total number of Americans actively for or against abortion, gun control, nationalized health care, or a balanced budget, combined. Since the landing there have 700 million more hits. Even assuming a significant repeat rate, the number is simply phenomenal. Yet despite this massive demonstration of support for Mars exploration, the politicians in charge and their consultants and astrologers, appear deaf to the call, providing virtually no government funding to prepare the way for human Mars exploration. This has caused tremendous public frustration, exemplified for me by the fact that since the publication of my book The Case for Mars, in October 1996, I have received over 3000 letters or e-mails from people asking me if there was any way we could initiate a human Mars exploration privately. I initially thought it impossible. However the public response to the Pathfinder mission has convinced me otherwise. After all 700 million hits! At $1 each that would be enough to fund four Pathfinder missions. At $10 each, that would be $7 billion, probably enough to fund a human Mars mission if done privately. But how does one get the credibility required to mobilize the funding that such broad based support represents? The Mars SocietyThere is one way that can be done; by forming an organization that initiates a program of activity, which in a series of escalating steps, proves to all concerned that a real private Mars exploration effort is underway. This is the method that Jacques Cousteau employed to raise resources for a series of increasingly ambitious undersea exploration ventures. It is to carry out such a program that the Mars Society is being formed, with the Founding Convention to take place in Boulder Colorado August 13-16 of this year. Unless we are unexpectedly lucky with fundraising, we will have to start small, perhaps with a hitchhiker payload or instrument flying on a NASA or ESA Mars probe. This could probably be managed at a cost of about $5 million. Once that is done, however, it should elevate the public profile of the Society enough to allow the raising of funds on the order of $100 million, sufficient to finance a complete private robotic exploration mission. My favorite candidate for such a mission would be a Mars aerial photography mission carried out with balloons, although there are many exciting alternative options, including long distance ground rovers, orbiters with ground penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and others. If a private organization were to be successful in implementing any mission of this type, the public excitement generated all over the world could well be sufficient to allow billions of dollars to be raised, enough to fund human Mars exploration either by the Society acting alone, or perhaps on a cost-sharing basis with NASA or other government space agencies. The Society's planned private Mars exploration effort and NASA's are not exclusive. On the contrary, because every government effort pursuing Mars exploration or technology development assists the cause and reduces the funding burden of the private initiative, the Society will also engage in broad outreach to instill the vision of pioneering Mars into the public and mobilize support for ever for aggressive government-funded robotic and human Mars exploration efforts. A preliminary steering committee for the Society has been formed, which includes Mike Griffin, former NASA Associate Administrator for exploration, myself, NASA scientists Christopher McKay and Carol Stoker, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, and many others. The Founding Convention of the Mars Society will be a historic step, one that may be remembered for centuries to come on the new world it opens. But history is not a spectator sport. We need your talents and energy if the initiative is to succeed. |
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